2020-2021 Nonprofit CEO Compensation Study

How much should a nonprofit CEO be paid? How do you know when a CEO is being overpaid? Nonprofit boards and concerned donors wrestle with these questions every year. 

That’s why Excellence in Giving delivers clear, current, and impartial answers in an annual Nonprofit CEO Compensation Study.

From February 2020 to April 2021, we gathered data from 440 nonprofits to assess which factors affect charity CEO salaries. After analyzing all 77,000+ data points captured in our Nonprofit Analytics, what emerged was a set of 5 key factors that determined if a CEO made more or less than the national average.

(excluding highly paid Health & University system CEOs)

Top 5 Factors Influencing Nonprofit CEO Compensation:

1. Total Expenses
2. Staff Size
3. Board Size
4. Donor Base
5. Impact Measures

You probably know that looking at the national average for CEO pay is essentially worthless. Organization size, location, and sector all greatly affect CEO compensation. For example, the highest nonprofit CEO salaries are found in Healthcare, at large, nonprofit hospital systems, and secondarily in Higher Education, such as those at large universities. Excellence in Giving excluded them from our analysis to provide a clearer understanding of which key factors control how much a nonprofit CEO gets paid at typical public charities.

More financial responsibility = Higher nonprofit CEO pay

In our study, the most significant factor affecting CEO pay was the amount of money raised and spent every year. On average, a CEO at a smaller nonprofit ($500K – $1M in annual expenses) makes $84,674 each year, while the average for a CEO at large nonprofits (over $50 million in annual expenses per year) gets paid $402,366. You can use the chart below to benchmark charity CEO pay with the #1 factor our research discovered:

If you want to see how staff size, board size, donor base, and use of impact measures affect pay, you will need to subscribe to our Nonprofit Analytics database. The full study is made available to subscribers at all 3 levels. This study includes the list of 10 highest-paid CEOs in our database and the percentage salary bump that CEOs get in the top 50 largest US metro areas. You can use the findings to benchmark nonprofit CEO compensation against 2020-2021 market rates.

Knowing these inside secrets about the social sector is how Excellence in Giving clients across the country give with insight and confidence.

BONUS: Do CEOs get paid more after multiple years of double-digit growth in the annual number of people served? Our compensation study delivers a surprising answer. So subscribe to our Nonprofit Analytics database, and we will send you a copy immediately.